Date:         Sat, 23 Aug 97 18:32:57 EDT
From: "Charles J. Stivale" <CSTIVAL-AT-CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU>
Subject:      L'Abecedaire de Gilles Deleuze, 3A (N & O)



*Part 3A of four final sections: N as in Neurology, O as in Opera

L'Abecedaire de Gilles Deleuze, avec Claire Parnet
<Gilles Deleuze's ABC Primer, with Claire Parnet>
Directed by Pierre-Andre' Boutang (1988)

Overview prepared by Charles J. Stivale

III - N through Z
(N as in Neurology, O as in Opera, P as in Professor, Q as in
Question, R as in Resistance, S as in Style, T as in Tennis, U as in
'Un'/One, V as in 'Voyage'/Trip, W as in Wittgenstein, X,Y as unknown,
Z as in Zigzag)

<The following is the third part of a three-part overview of the
eight-hour series of interviews between Gilles Deleuze and Claire
Parnet that were filmed by Pierre-Andre' Boutang in 1988. Destined to
be broadcast only after Deleuze's death, these interviews were shown
with his permission on the Arte channel between November 1994 and
spring 1995, i.e. during the year prior to his death.

Rather than provide a transcription and translation into English, I
try to provide the main points of the questions posed by Parnet and
Deleuze's responses, and all infelicities and omissions are entirely
my responsibility. See the summary of the previous part for details on
the interview "set".>

N as in Neurology

    Parnet announces this title as linking both neurology and the
brain. Deleuze says, it's very difficult, neurology. It's true that
it always fascinated him, but why? It's the question, what happens in
someone's head when he/she has an idea? How does it communicate inside
the head? They don't proceed along pre-formed paths and by ready-made
associations, so something happens, if only we knew. That interests
Deleuze greatly, for example, the solutions must be extremely varied.
He clarifies this: two extremities in the brain can well establish
contact, i.e. through electric processes of the synapses. And then
there are other cases that are much more complex perhaps, through
discontinuity in which there is a gap that must be jumped. Deleuze
says it seems to him that the brain is full of fissures <fentes>, that
jumping happens constantly in a probabilistic regime. He believes
there are relations of probability between two linkages, and that
these communications inside a brain are fundamentally uncertain,
relying on laws of probability. Deleuze sees this as the question of,
what makes us think something, and he admits that someone might object
that he's inventing nothing, that it's the old question of
associations of ideas. One would almost have to wonder, he says, for
example, when a concept is given or a work of art is looked at, one
would almost have to try to sketch a map of the brain, its
correspondences, what the continuous communications are and what the
discontinuous communications would be from one point to another.

    Something has struck Deleuze, he admits, and suggests that this
might lead to what Parnet was seeking in her question. It's a story
that physicists use, the baker's transformation: taking a segment of
dough to knead it, you stretch it out into a rectangle, you fold it
back over, you stretch it out again, etc. etc., you makes a number of
transformations and after *x* transformations, two completely
contiguous points are necessarily caused to be quite the opposite,
very distant from each other. And there are distant points that, as a
result of *x* transformations, are found to be quite contiguous. So,
Deleuze wonder whether, when one looks for something in one's head,
there might be this type of combinations <brassages>, for example, two
points that he cannot see how to associate, and as a result of
numerous transformations, he discovers them side by side. He suggests
that between a concept and a work of art, i.e. between a mental
product and a cerebral mechanism, there are some very, very exciting
resemblances, and that for him, the questions, how does one think? and
what does thinking mean?, suggest that with thought and the brain, the
questions are mixed. Deleuze says that he believes more in the future
of molecular biology than in the future of information science or of
any theory of communication.

    Parnet points out that Deleuze always gave a special place to 19th
century psychiatry that extensively addressed neurology and the
science of the brain, that he gave a priority to psychiatry over
psychoanalysis precisely for psychiatry's relations with neurology.
So, she asks, is that still the case? Deleuze says, yes, completely.
As he said earlier, there is also a relationship with the pharmacy,
the possible action of drugs on the brain and the structures that can
be located on a molecular level, in cases of schizophrenia. For
Deleuze, these aspects appear to be a more certain future than
mentalist psychiatry <la psychiatrie spiritualiste>.

    Parnet asks a methodological question: it's no secret that Deleuze
is rather self-taught <autodidacte>, when he reads a biology or a
scientific journal. Also he's not very good in math, as opposed to
some philosophers he has studied, like Bergson (with a degree in
math), Spinoza (strong in math), Leibniz (no need to say, strong in
math). So, she asks, how does Deleuze manage to read? When he has an
idea and needs something that interests him, but doesn't understand it
at all, how does he manage?

    Deleuze says that there's something that gives him great comfort,
specifically that he is firmly persuaded in the possibility of two
readings of a same thing. Already in philosophy, he has believed
strongly that one need not be a philosopher to read philosophy. Not
only is philosophy open to two readings, philosophy *needs* two
readings at the same time. A non-philosophical reading of philosophy
is absolutely necessary, without which there would be no beauty in
philosophy. That is, with non-specialists reading philosophy, this
non-philosophical reading of philosophy lacks nothing and is entirely
adequate. Deleuze qualifies this, though, saying that two readings
might not work for all philosophy. He has trouble seeing a
non-philosophical reading of Kant. But in Spinoza... he says it's not
at all impossible that a farmer or a storekeeper could read Spinoza,
and for Nietzsche, all the more so, all philosophers that Deleuze
admires are like that.

    So, he continues, there is no need to understand, since
understanding is a certain level of reading. If someone were to
object that to appreciate a painting by Gauguin, you have to have some
knowledge about it, Deleuze responds, of course, some knowledge is
necessary, but there are also extraordinary emotions, authentic,
extraordinarily pure, extraordinarily violent, in a total ignorance of
painting. For him, it's entirely obvious that someone can take in a
painting like a thunderbolt and not know a thing about the painting.
Similarly, someone can be overwhelmed with emotion by a musical work
without knowing a word. Deleuze says that he, for example, is very
moved by <Alban Berg's operas> _Lulu_ and _Wozzeck_, without
mentioning the concert by <name spoken very rapidly, resembling:
Ardanange; name unclear from interview>, who is above everyone else in
moving Deleuze.

    So, he says that he knows it's better to have a competent
perception, but he still maintains that everything that counts in the
world in the realm of the mind is open to a double reading, provided
that it is not something done randomly as an autodidact. Rather, it's
something that one undertakes starting from one's problems taken from
elsewhere. Deleuze means that it's on the basis of being a philosopher
that he has a non-musical perception of music, which makes music
extraordinarily stirring for him. Similarly, it's on the basis of
being a musician, a painter, this or that, that one can undertake a
non-philosophical reading of philosophy. If this second reading (which
is not second) did not occur, if there weren't these two, simultaneous
readings, it's like both wings on a bird, the need for two lectures
together. Moreover, Deleuze argues that a philosopher must learn to
read a great philosopher non-philosophically. The typical example for
him is yet again Spinoza: reading Spinoza in paperback, whenever and
wherever one can, for Deleuze, creates as much emotion as a great
musical work. And to a some extent, he says, the question is not
understanding since in the courses that Deleuze used to give, it was
so clear that sometimes the students understood, sometimes they did
not, and we are all like that, sometimes understanding, sometimes not.

    Deleuze comes back to Parnet's question on science that he sees
the same way: to some extent, one is always at the extreme <pointe> of
one's ignorance, which is exactly where one must settle in
<s'installer>, at the extreme of one's knowledge or one's ignorance,
which is the same thing, in order to have something to say. If he
waited to know what he was going to write, Deleuze says, literally, if
he waited to know what he was talking about, then he would always have
to wait because what he would say would have no interest. If he does
not run a risk, if he settles in and speaks with a scholarly air on
something he doesn't know, then this is another example without
interest. But if he speaks from this very border between knowing and
non-knowing, it's there that one must settle in to have something to
say.

    For science, it is the same, Deleuze maintains, and the
confirmation he has found is that he always had great relations with
scientists. They never took him to be a scientist, they think he
doesn't understand much, but Deleuze feels that it works, he is open
to echoes. He gives a very simple example: a painter that he likes
greatly is Delaunay, and what does he do? He observed something quite
prodigious. Delaunay's idea is that light forms figures itself,
figures of light, and not aspects that light takes on when it meets an
object. This is how Delaunay removes himself from all objects, with
the result of creating paintings without objects any longer. Deleuze
says he read some very beautiful things by Delaunay, in which he
judges cubism very severely. Delaunay says that Cezanne succeeded in
breaking the object, breaking the bowl <compotier>, and that the
cubists spent their time seeking to glue it back together. So for
rigid and geometric figures, Delaunay substitutes figures of pure
light. That's something, a pictorial event, a Delaunay-event.

    Deleuze suggests that there is a way that this is linked to
relativity, to the theory of relativity, and he argues that one need
not know much, it's only being an autodidact that's dangerous. Deleuze
says he only knows something small about relativity, it's precisely
instead of having had lines of light, extended lines of light <lignes
suivies de lumiere> subjected to geometric lines, there's a total
reversal following Michelson. Now lines of light will condition
geometric lines, a considerable reversal from a scientific
perspective, that will change everything since the line of light no
longer has the constancy of the geometric line, and everything is
changed as this aspect of relativity corresponds the best with
Michelson's experiments. Deleuze says that he does not mean to say
that Delaunay applies relativity; Deleuze celebrates the encounter
between a pictorial undertaking and a scientific undertaking that
should not be in relation with each other.

    Another example is Riemann spaces, about which Deleuze says he
knows little in detail, but enough to know that it's a space
constructed piece by piece, and that the connections between pieces
are not pre-determined. But for completely different reasons, Deleuze
needed a spatial concept for the parts in which there aren't
connections and that aren't pre-determined. I needed this, he says,
and couldn't spend five years of his life trying to understand
Riemann, because at the end of five years, he would not have made any
progress with his philosophical concept. And in going to the movies,
he sees a spatial role that everyone knows as being the use of space
in Bresson's films, in which space is rarely global, but constructed
piece by piece. One sees little pieces of space that join up, the link
not being pre-determined, and why? It's because they are manual,
Deleuze says, from which one can understand the importance of hands
for Bresson. In fact, in _The Pickpocket_, it's the speed with which
the stolen object is passed from one hand to the other that will
determine the connections of little spaces. Deleuze does not mean
either that Bresson is applying Riemann spaces, but rather that an
encounter can occur between a philosophical concept, a scientific
notion, and an aesthetic percept. Perfect!

    In science, Deleuze says, he knows just enough to evaluate
encounters; if he knew more, he'd do science, not philosophy. So, to a
great extent, he speaks well about something he doesn't know, but he
speaks of what he doesn't know as a function of what he knows. He
argues that all of this is a question of tact, no point in kidding
about it, no point in adopting a knowledgeable air when one doesn't
know, but still, Deleuze says he has had encounters with painters that
were the most beautiful days of his life. Not physical encounters, but
in what Deleuze writes -- the greatest of them being the painter
Entaille <sp?>, with whom something important happened. Deleuze says
that's what his encounter with Carmello Bene was about <in
_Superpositions_>.  Deleuze never did any theater, understands nothing
about theatre, but he has to admit that something important happened
there as well. There are scientists with whom these things work too.
Deleuze says he knows some mathematicians that were kind enough to
read what Deleuze has written, and said that it works quite well.

    Deleuze admits that his comments here are going wrong since he
seems to be taking on an air of completely despicable
self-satisfaction. For him, though, the question is not whether or not
he knows a lot of science, but whether he is capable of learning some
of it. The important thing, he admits, is not to make stupid
statements <betises>, and to establish echoes, phenomena of echoes
between a concept, a percept and a function (since, for Deleuze,
science does not proceed by concepts, but by functions). From this
perspective, Deleuze needed Riemann spaces, he knew they existed, did
not know exactly what they were, but that was enough.

..LAYOUT 1
"O as in Opera"

    Parnet starts by admitting that this title is a bit of a joke
since, other than _Wozzeck_ by Berg, it's safe to say that opera is
not one of Deleuze's activities or interests. Compared to Foucault or
Francois Chatelet who liked Italian opera, Deleuze never really
listened to music or opera. What interested him more was the popular
song, particularly Edith Piaf, for whom he has a great passion. So she
asks if he could talk a bit about this.

    Deleuze responds that she is being a bit severe in saying that.
First he listened to music quite a bit, just a long time ago; since
then, he has stopped because he has concluded that it's a chasm,
taking too much time, and since he has too much to do -- not social
tasks, but his desire to write things --, he just doesn't have the
time to listen to music, or listen to enough of it.

    Parnet points out that Chatelet worked while listening to opera,
to which Deleuze says, first, he couldn't do that, and he's not so
sure that Chatelet did while working, maybe, and of course, when he
entertained people at his home. Opera sometimes covered over what
people were saying when he'd had enough, but for Deleuze, that's not
how it works for him. But, he says that he would prefer to turn the
question more in his own favor by transforming it into: what is it
that creates a community between a popular song and a musical work of
art. That's a subject that Deleuze finds fascinating. The case of
Edith Piaf, for example: Deleuze considers her to be a great
'chanteuse', with an extraordinary voice; moreover, she has this way
of singing off-key and then constantly catching the false note and
making it right, this kind of system in imbalance that constantly is
catching and making itself right.  For Deleuze, this seems to be the
case in any style. This is something Deleuze likes a lot because it's
the question he poses about everything on the level of the popular
song: he wonders, what does it bring to me that is fresh <de nouveau>?
Especially in the productions, they bring something fresh. If it's
been done 10, 100, 1000 times, maybe even done quite well, Deleuze
understands then what Robbe-Grillet said: Balzac was obviously a great
writer, but what interest is there in creating novels today like
Balzac created them? Moreover, that practice sullies Balzac's novels,
and that's how it is in everything.

    What Deleuze found particularly moving in Piaf was that she
introduced something fresh in relation to the preceding generation,
Frehel and Adabia <?>, even in her self-presentation, and in her
voice. In more modern singers, one has to thing about Charles Trenet.
Quite literally, Deleuze claims, one has never heard anyone sing like
him. Deleuze insists on this point: for philosophy, for music, for
painting, for art, whether it's the popular song or the rest, sports
even, the question is exactly the same, what's fresh in it? That's not
to be interpreted in the sense of fashion, but just the opposite:
what's fresh is something that's not fashionable, perhaps it will
become so, but it's not fashionable since people don't expect it.
When Trenet was singing well, people said he was crazy; people no
longer say so, but one can remark eternally that he was crazy, and he
remained so. Piaf appeared grandiose to us all.

    Parnet asks about Deleuze's admiration for Claude Francois, and
Deleuze says that, right or wrong, he thought he'd found something
fresh in Claude Francois, who tried to discover something different,
whereas there are so many that try nothing at all. For Deleuze, it's
the same thing, to bring something fresh and to try to find something
different. For Piaf, what was she looking for? Deleuze recalls what he
said earlier about weak health and strong live, Piaf is the very
example of someone who saw things in life, the force of life, that
broke her. Deleuze was receptive to Claude Francois because he sought
a fresh kind of show, a song-show, inventing a kind of danced song,
that obviously implied using playback. So much the better or so much
for the worse, says Deleuze, that also allowed him to undertake
research into sound. To the end, Francois was dissatisfied with one
thing, the texts of his songs that were rather weak and stupid. He
tried to arrange his texts so he might achieve greater textual
qualities, like "Alexandrie, Alexandra," a good song.

    Today, Deleuze says he is not very familiar with music, but when
he turns on the t.v. -- the rights he now has that he's retired, to
turn on the t.v. when he's tired --, he notes that the more channels
there are, the more they look alike, and the more nil they become, a
radical nullity. The regime of competition, competing with each other,
produces the same, eternal nullity, and the effort to know what will
make the listener turn here to listen instead of there, it's
frightening. What he hears there can't even be called a song, since
the voice doesn't even exist, no one has the least voice.

    But then Deleuze says, let's not complain: what affects him is
this kind of domain that would be treated doubly by the popular
song and by music. Deleuze turns to something that he and Felix
Guattari developed, something that he considers a very important
philosophical concept, the ritornello <a.k.a. the refrain>. For
Deleuze, the ritornello is this common point. Deleuze suggests
defining the ritornello as a little tune, "tra-la-la-la." When do I
say "tra-la-la?" Deleuze asks. He insists that he's doing philosophy
in asking when does he sing to himself. On three occasions: he sings
this tune when he is moving about in his territory, wiping off his
furniture, radio playing in the background. So, he sings when he's at
home. Then, he sings to himself when not at home at nightfall, at the
hour of agony, when he's seeking his way, and needs to give himself
courage by singing, tra-la-la. He's heading home. And he sings to
himself when he says "farewell, I am leaving, and I will carry you
with me in my heart," it's a popular song, and I sing to myself when I
am leaving home to go somewhere else. In other words, Deleuze
continues, the ritornello is absolutely linked -- which takes the
discussion back to "A - Animal" - to the problem of the territory and
of exiting or entering the territory, i.e. the problem of
deterritorialization. I return to my territory or I try, says Deleuze,
or I deterritorialize myself, i.e. I leave, I leave my territory, with
music.

    One has to make progress in creating a concept, that's why Deleuze
invokes the image of the brain. Taking his brain at this moment as an
example, he suddenly says to himself, "the *lied*.  What is the
*lied*? It will always have been the voice as a song elevating its
chant as a function of its position in relation to the territory. My
territory, the territory I no longer have, the territory that I am
trying to reach again, that's what the *lied* is. Whether it's
Schumann or Schubert, that's what it is fundamentally. That's what
Deleuze considers affect to be. When he was saying earlier that music
is the history of becomings and the force of becomings, it was
something of this sort that he meant, great or mediocre.

    Deleuze asks, what is truly great music? For Deleuze, it appears
as an artistic operation of music. They start from ritornellos, and
Deleuze includes even the most abstract musicians. He believes that
each musician has his/her kinds of ritornellos, speaking of little
tunes, of little ritornellos. He refers to Vinteuil and Proust <in _A
la recherche du temps perdu_>, three notes then two, a little
ritornello, that passes from Vinteuil, then passes from the septet.
For Deleuze, it's a ritornello that one must find in music and even
under music, something prodigious that a great musician creates: not
ritornellos that he/she places one after the other, but ritornellos
that will melt into an even more profound ritornello. This is all
ritornellos of territories, of one particular territory and another
that will become organized in the heart of an immense ritornello, a
cosmic ritornello, in fact! Everything that Stockhausen says about
music and the cosmos, this whole way of returning to themes that were
current in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance -- Deleuze says that he
is quite in favor of this kind of idea that music would have a
relationship with the cosmos.

    He returns to a musician that he admires and who has greatly
affected him, Mahler, his _Song of the Earth_ -- for Deleuze, there is
nothing better. This is perpetually like elements in genesis, in which
there is perpetually a little ritornellos sometimes based on two cow
bells. Deleuze finds extraordinarily moving in Mahler's works the way
that all the little ritornellos, which are already musical works of
genius, tavern ritornellos, shepherd ritornellos, the way they achieve
a composition into a kinds of great ritornello that will become the
song of the earth. Deleuze suggests yet another example in Bartok, a
great genius. Deleuze admires how he connects and reconnects local
ritornellos, national ritornellos, ritornellos of national minorities,
etc., and collects them in a work that has not yet been fully
examined.

    Deleuze goes on to unite music and painting as exactly the same.
He refers to Klee who said: the painter does not render the visible,
but renders visible, meaning the same thing for a musician,
forces that are not visible: the musician does not render the audible,
he/she renders audible forces that would not be audible, making
audible the music of the earth, music in which he/she invents, exactly
like the philosopher. The philosopher renders thinkable forces that
are not thinkable, that are in nature rather raw, rather brutal. It's
this communion of little ritornellos with the great ritornello that,
for Deleuze, defines music, something he finds very simple. It's
music's force, a force to deliver a truly cosmic level, as if stars
began singing a little tune of a cow bell, a little shepherd's tune.
Or, he suggests, it might be the reverse, the cow bells that are
suddenly elevated to the state of celestial or infernal sounds.

    Parnet objects that she can't explain exactly why, but she has the
impression from Deleuze's explanation full of musical erudition that
he still seeks the visual through music, through the ritornello. She
sees him engaging the visual. She says she does understand the extent
to which the audible is linked to cosmic forces like the visual, but
she points out that Deleuze goes to no concerts, something bothers him
there, he does not listen to music, and he goes to art exhibits at
least once a week as his usual practice.

    Deleuze says that it's a lack of possibilities and a lack of time
because, for answer, what interests him above all in literature is
style. Style, for him, is the pure auditory. He says he wouldn't make
the distinction she does between the visual and the audible. He admits
that he rarely goes to concerts because it's more complicated now
reserving in advance. All of this are practical details of life,
whereas when there's an art exhibit, no reservations are needed. But,
he says that each time he went to a concert, he found it too long
since he has very little receptivity, while he always felt deep
emotions. Then, he says he's not sure Parnet is right, thinks she is
mistaken because her impression is not completely true. In any case,
he says, music makes him feel great emotions, and speaking about music
is even more difficult than speaking of painting. It's the highest
point, speaking about music.

    Parnet says there are many philosophers who spoke about music.
Deleuze interrupts her to say that style is sonorous, not visual, and
he's only interested in sonority at that level. Parnet continues:
music is immediately connected to philosophy, so lots of philosophers
spoke about music, for example, Jankelevitch -- Deleuze agrees -- but
other than Merleau-Ponty, there are few philosophers who spoke about
painting. Deleuze says, really? He's not that sure, nor is Parnet, she
admits, but Barthes, Jankelevitch, even Foucault spoke about music.
Deleuze gives his dismissive gesture when she says Foucault since
Foucault didn't talk about music, says Deleuze, it was a secret for
him, his relations with music were completely a secret. Parnet says
yes, that he was very close to certain musicians. Deleuze does not
want to discuss it, says these are secrets that Foucault did not
discuss. Parnet pursues this, saying Foucault was very close to the
musical world, even if a secret -- Deleuze says, yes, yes, yes...

    Parnet then points out that there's the exception of <Alban> Berg,
for Deleuze... And he picks this up: yes, and to explain his
admiration, he says that this is connected to the question of why
someone is devoted to something. Deleuze admits he doesn't know why,
but he discovered at the same time that musical pieces for
orchestras... <as he has done on occasion throughout the interviews,
Deleuze here has trouble swallowing, stops and says> You see what an
old man is <motions to his throat>, you can't find names... the
orchestra pieces by his master <Parnet gives him the name> ...by
Schoenberg. Not long ago, Deleuze recalls putting on these orchestra
pieces fifteen times in a row, and came to recognize some entirely
overwhelming moments. At the same time, Deleuze found Berg, someone he
could listen to all day long. But Deleuze sees this also being a
question of a relationship to the earth. Mahler, says Deleuze, was
someone he came to know much later, but it's music and earth. Deleuze
says that in very old musicians, there is fully a relationship of
music and earth, but the extent of that kind of relation in Berg's and
Mahler's works, Deleuze found this quite overwhelming. For him, it
means making sonorous the forces of the earth, for example, <in
Berg's> _Wozzeck_, that Deleuze considers to be a great text since
it's the music of the earth.

    Parnet observes there are lots of cries in it and that Deleuze
likes cries a lot. Deleuze agrees; for him, there is a relation
between the song <chant> and cries, in fact, that this school <of
music> was able to reintroduce as a problem. The two cries, Deleuze
says, never tire him, the horizontal cry that floats along the earth
in _Wozzeck_, and the completely vertical cry of the countess in
<Berg's> _Lulu_ --these are like two dense summits of cries. All of
that interests Deleuze as well because in philosophy, there are songs
and cries, veritable songs in philosophy, concepts are veritable
songs, and cries are in philosophy. Suddenly Aristotle says: you have
to stop! Or another says, no, I'll never stop! Spinoza: what is a body
capable of? <qu'est-ce que peut un corps?> We don't even know what a
body is capable of! So the cry-song or the concept-affect relation is
quite the same, something that Deleuze accepts completely and that
affects him greatly.

End of Part 3A of Gilles Deleuze's ABC Primer